In the reform period of China’s 1980s, more women directors emerged and created images at odds with the stereotypical representation of ‘Chinese women’. As Lidan Hu contends, these women directors provide alternative visions of the modernisation of Chinese cinema and call attention to the fundamental issues concerning modern female subjectivity. Lu Xiaoya (陆小雅, b. 1941), a former actress who transitioned to directing in the late 1970s, has consistently foregrounded social issues in her work, with a particular emphasis on women's experiences.

Chin's humour-filled memoir, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant, tells his story about growing up Asian in Detroit and coming out to his working class immigrant family, all set against the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s, AIDS, and his family's popular Chinese restaurant. The book has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Time Magazine, as well as CBS Saturday Morning News and NBC News. It's also been honoured by the State of Michigan and the American Library Association.